An NY Times article called "The Ways of L:ust" purports to relay analyses of how viewing naked or "sexualized" imgaes of people (women, almost entirely) reduces the apprehension of them as full persons, and possibly therefore lowering our apprehension of actrual persons (as opposed to images.)

"This idea has some laboratory support. Studies have found that viewing people’s bodies, as opposed to their faces, makes us judge those people as less intelligent, less ambitious, less competent and less likable. One neuroimaging experiment found that, for men, viewing pictures of sexualized women induced lowered activity in brain regions associated with thinking about other people’s minds."

The second sentence is an equivocation -- people and images of people (at least I assume that the "studies" were of people viewing images not bodies). The last sentence is...precious. WHo could have guessed this result in advance?

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Today's Sunday review is overall embarrassing. The two cover stories are one arguing that young people aren't so shallow as all that, and Mark Bittman getting excited about imposing extra sales taxes on food favored by poor people (and sponsored by government corn subsidies). The interior article about how we should be working to make teaching an undemanding sinecure for writers whose work doesn't sell is also extra-special.